One of the better Marvel vs. DC articles I’ve read in some time

Occasionally I liked to check out the works of blogger/Hollywood film pundit Scott Mendelson over at Forbes. He writes a lot of stuff I agree with and a lot of stuff I don’t particularly see eye-to-eye with, but he’s always interesting and always has a good take on things. He recently wrote a Marvel vs. DC (cue the eye-rolling, I know) article about their film adaptations that I feel is one of the better pieces I’ve read on the subject in quite some time. Check it out here.

I posted this comment on the site in response to the article, largely agreeing with him:

“I really think all hardcore fans of comic book adaptations need to read this. It is everything I keep saying to them (but much less so these days because it’s so seemingly futile) and more. You’re exactly right — WB is such a diversified movie studio that they don’t have to do the DC Comics equivalent of Thor every other year to stay profitable. What I see constantly are Marvel fanboys hurling insults at WB like they’re doing something wrong. Some people, like myself, don’t particularly care for the Disney/Marvel blueprint for blockbuster comic book filmmaking (and even less so for how Sony handles things with Spider-Man, but that’s a different story). Looking over the slate of Disney/Marvel films from the past few years, nothing really all that important ever happens in those movies. The upcoming Captain America may be an exception, but even in The Avengers, nothing earth-shattering or game-changing really happened. The death of Phil Coulson was even taken back with the new (and terrible, I might add) tv series Agents of Shield.

I can’t speak for Man of Steel, because while I liked that movie I also recognize that it isn’t great. But the Nolan Batman movies actually felt like there were real stakes for the characters. Rachel dying in the second movie feels like something that Disney/Marvel would never have the guts to pull off in any of there movies. I also keep seeing Disney/Marvel fans balk at WB for not having a Wonder Woman movie in development, insinuating in so many words that WB is somehow misogynistic or doesn’t otherwise care about women in their comic book movies. This is just so wrong to me. Anne Hathaway was arguably what people liked *best* about The Dark Knight Rises, an entertaining but mess of a movie. And we don’t know what Snyder, Nolan, and Goyer have in store for Gal Godot as Wonder Woman, but after how much I liked Hathaway in TDKR as well as Amy Adams in MoS, I can at least say I’m optimistic about Godot’s role as Wonder Woman.

I don’t understand people’s need to constantly compare these two things as if they are somehow supposed to be exactly the same. They are different beings run by two entirely different film production companies with various different interests. Both are in the purpose of making money, and both do a fine job of it. Can we not just throw all of our differences aside and make fun of The Amazing Spider-Man franchise instead??”

Just wanted to point people in the direction of an article I enjoyed. Check it out!

One response to “One of the better Marvel vs. DC articles I’ve read in some time”

I think that is the thing that most people don’t quite realize that Marvel Studios’s only job is to make movies based on Marvel properties. That’s it. Because of that, they can afford to release two or so a year and not be too terribly concerned about other films. It also is a way to keep track of the continuity between the films. That formula has proven successful.

Warner Bros. doesn’t have that. They release multiple movies beyond anything DC Comics related. I suppose they could create an off-shoot studio to focus on DC films, but there really is no reason to do that. The reason Marvel does it that way is because Marvel came to Disney, not the other way around.